British Flag Protests' a Warning Over Failure of Immigration Controls

Frustration over rising numbers of "small boat" arrivals is taking form in displays of Union and English flags.

- Jonathan Eyal

It began as an apparently harmless, even charming pursuit. Over the past month and across Britain—from coastal places in south England to northern market squares—the Union flag and the English St George's flag started being hoisted on lampposts, shopfronts, and flagpoles.

Yet such supposedly unconnected local gestures have now turned into a powerful grassroots movement, an act of political defiance against British immigration policies that many voters believe are being pursued against their will.

And when local authorities responded by ordering the removal of such flags, a peaceful protest turned into something much more explosive: a public debate about how large numbers of immigrants are bound to change the very nature of the United Kingdom.

Initially, politicians in London dismissed the flag displays as pranks by a handful of attention-seekers and racists; the protests came at the same time as a wave of demonstrations outside buildings where refugees and asylum-seekers are being housed. But as the protest movement shows no signs of abating, politicians in London are now panicking.

On Aug 24, the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an overhaul of the way it handles illegal migrants, vowing to kick them out of the British Isles as soon as possible. "If you come to this country illegally, you will face detention and return," he wrote on the X social platform, using the sort of language which only a few months ago his Labour centre-left party dismissed as "ignorant and racist".